I think this is more about the concept of electrical continuity than actually learning music. It's probably just simple fun for young children. When i think about the ridiculous (and simple) circuits i built when i was 12, this gadget probably compares! The benefit for me with starting simple was that the circuits i made allowed me to be curious without being overwhelmed. I changed component values, changed components and generally just stuffed around until i learned something. I suppose it taught me to teach myself.
@@emilyharpist The intended tinker'y nature of it definitely makes sense but I could see how it feels gimmicky it's all experimentation no application through praxis. Though it's def musical, could see this in live setting being useful if each connection is mappable because then you could just use it as a cheaper alternative to a samplepad for a drummer or some quirky bit where you start eating fruit and cheese together to create music like in rattattaoile. Def less instrument and more tool though.
I thought of a use. Learning music scales. You can hook it up to something like a piece of paper with a piano layout on it like a stylophone and label it. You can have a ton of these and swap between them if you want to practice a different scale. It can sometimes be hard to see the scale clearly otherwise for learners.
@@emilyharpist oh then that's ok. I'm an electrician so I'm sensitive to these things. Actually we say "electricity knows no color". Rock on and thanks for the reply!
Well that review won't be on their website! I think there are ways round the connectivity issue with an antistatic strap fed through a sleeve to the wrist to be less obtrusive.
It looks shite! Without changing anything else other than the fruit/veg, does the quality of the sound produced change? Or would you get the same sound from a tomato as you would from a strawberry?
This is for a middle school science class. Seems like a fun way to explain electricity to kids by completing circuits with your body. I wouldn't expect it to have much value beyond RU-vid videos like "Playing Strawberry Fields on REAL Strawberries!!" Although if I understand how it works, you could actually just connect any of those notes to something conductive. Fruit isn't a necessity.
Does it really teach anything about "science" or circuits and wiring? Are those egg plants in parallel or series? How many volts do I need to power a strawberry? What's the Amp draw of a Banana? And why should you care how many amps your appliances use?
Thanks for your comment! You have captured one of the main use cases of our devices. Originally, it was created for teaching kids music in a fun and simple way. But now a big part of our users are performers and artists who create very beautiful sound and visual installations!
Honestly, I've seen way, way better demonstrations using a chain of people to cause a lightbulb to glow. If the loop breaks, the light goes out. If you add more people, the bulb gets dimmer. If you have multiple bulbs, you can even demonstrate how series and parallel works, especially the impact it has on overall resistance (indicated by the bulbs getting brighter or dimmer).
It's actually got really useful applications for people who can't play instruments traditionally. My partner uses it in teaching disabled people music.
I think the cool thing is that, technically you don't need fruit, If you wanted to make your own instrument you could just solder wires directly to the board and then make any type of instrument you want as long as it's conductive. I can see this as a maker item to get a easy midi interface into your custom instrument more then just an item you buy to play music with fruit.
Ouch, tough but very honest review - if it was doing anything interesting like moderating any kind of signal based on attaching it to different kinds of objects it might at least increase the novelty of it for a little bit of time.... but overall... yeah, just seems like a wasteful gimmick. The world of holiday buyers salutes your service to identify things that are bad! :)
This is great for performance art. Slice the eggplant into thin slices, put on a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese and some garlic, put it into the oven, take it out when the cheese is nice and melted or a bit crusty, dont burn your self on the hot tomato though.
While the veggie gimmick is definitely not particularly helpful - I can see using it to make an environmental space into a musical/performance one. Attaching the MIDI to samples or sequencers can mean you aren't limited by the standard keyboard as a musical interface. Not sure I would care about it, but I could see how it is helpful. The idea that since it's all on cables, you can space the notes however you want.
YES I was thinking performance art too, but yeah that whole ground aspect makes things complicated, and they don't show that in the Playtron advertisements. like if you wanted to get creative with it you can use longer cables and attach it to your toe or something but still, it's limiting 🤔
@@emilyharpist yea, you'd have to find someway to like turn it into a mat, or maybe a belt pack or something. Definitely not friendly for much use right out of the box! It does remind me of LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER who made a device with the same concept where he turned his concert into full audience participation by having people link hands and then high-five to close the circuit (like touching the fruit here) and it would trigger the note. He also made a couple copper rods you could bang together to be a MIDI controller like this. They were pretty cool!
I think that you guys missed a real opportunity to talk about how this could be used. The gimmicky aspect is basing it on fruit or food or whatever. That's dumb. Really imagine it as being connected to something functional and practical like copper tape, cut and layered across your harp in different and convenient locations so that you can use it to control midi live or even CV in a modular unit in a way that is customized to you and your instrument.
Just catching up here. There was a device called an OTOTO, which was this, but you didn't need ground at all. Really nice, and used much for interactive art, since you could just poke a thing and it would react or activate a projection. And you could wire it all up with copper tape, so you could have patterns on the floor or triggers throughout a wall or clothes
I wish there was something that could detect flavor or smell and translate it to some sort of audio effect, that might be cool but I've always felt these "turn anything into" midi controllers to be fairly gimmicky, I think this is more obvious as musicians, where we know the fruits or plants have absolutely no correlation to the audio being produced Tantacruel has a great video about the problems with "sonification of data" I think as musicians we're aware that you could just touch the alligator clips and get the same results, you could just touch the pads you clip onto and get the same results the fruit/veggies are just a dog and pony show also there's not much room for experimentation, it doesn't matter what fruit or vegetable you hook up to, it could be glasses of water or aluminium foil but the sounds will be exactly the same when there's channels making literal wind instruments out of fruits and veggies, gimmicks like this seem silly
Rainger FX has the Minibar overdrive uses the conductivy of a liquid to determine the distortion and the opacity for the tone. Is also gimmicky but what you put inside truly affects the sound. And of course, there's Instruo Scion that uses electro dermal activity (a la mushrooms playing synths).
@@PebloNemo Yeah I've seen the ranger one, it's neat, but again, could probably just be replaced with 2 knobs, the liquid isn't necessarily doing anything special. I guess you could do like oil and died water and the motion might make some unique textures. The instruo module is neat too, but isn't really responding to actual biomolekular information, more specifically, the shape of molecules ins't super important, though it's neat in that its taking some level of actual data from the source contact still neater than "fruit make note" but I think often this type of stuff is more of a window dressing than anything particularly special to the sound
I agree, and I am fairly ignorant of gimmicky MIDI controllers, but I can see some use with more reasonable touch points to have a fully flexible MIDI controller to possibly breakout of the keyboard/grid view of the standard MIDI controllers. There might be some value there. But it does seem sadly limiting. I wonder if it even has velocity control. LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER has a couple pieces about using this concept, basically, to turn a concert into full audience participation where you could have people high five to make synth stabs and things like that, or had copper rods you could bang together as the MIDI controller. That was pretty cool
@@PebloNemo literally what I was gonna talk about. It’d be cool if they made something like mushroom thing but for people if that would work. Maybe it could sense when you move your muscles and react to that.
omg yes. I'm so tired of those ads and lots of friends forwarding me those via IG and I'm like "omg stop it already ". I was sure it was going to be gimmicky. Thank you for the honest review - it's amazing :D
practical usage idea: using it with, like, scrap metal and conductive strikers to have metallic percussion that also triggers notes or samples it'd be for a relatively specific circumstance, but it could be interesting
You can solder wires to a cheap harp toy etc etc. The ground can touch any part of you to complete the circuit. I mean, alligator clips can get.... interesting.
Honestly I kinda like this thing. It would be more effective to hook the ground to an ankle strap and possibly make your own instrument. It might be interesting to use the ankle strap and attach each wire to a different string on your harp. just saying, that would be awesome to see a video of lol
I definitely agree that it's pretty gimmicky, but I am curious if you could connect it to guitar (or harp) strings somehow to augment the instrument while playing
Love the honesty! I think it might be cool if you hooked the clips to the rims of a drum kit. You could use the rims as triggers for notes/chords live during breakdowns/interludes. That's the only remotely practical application I can think of, though!
@@emilyharpist At first I wanted to dismiss this but there's actually a really smart work around this actually comes with, you have to touch the rim and the ground to make it happen so this could actually be a really neat way to trigger things. I mean an SPDSX does a better job because you have to stop drumming for a sec to touch the parts but still kinda neat. If I didn't live halfway across the world I would offer my help with the playtron testing :)
« This video is sponsored by Distrokid that’s why i was able to get a lot of veggies »: damn, i underrated inflation, veggies become more expensive than pedals ;)
Haha! A few years ago I got something like this called Makey Makey! It too was saying you can make a banana piano but it had other uses like a life size video game controller or trigger a camera when your cat sits on a mat :)
I was waiting for someone to mention the Makey Makey. It also requires a ground connection, but there are plenty of development boards out there that do capacitive touch so you only need to *touch* the thing, no ground wire needed. Calibrating for capacitance can be a bit tricky (though I've done it for museum and tradeshow exhibits) but when it works properly it's really nice. There are one or two products out there, but they are marketed more towards electronics nerds and educators, and not towards serious (traditional) musicians.
@@emilyharpist And before Makey Makey there was 8Tunnel2, IFTAF, Michel Waisvisz's Cracklebox... So nothing new under the sun. Just artists not getting credited nor paid when companies repackage their work into commercial products. Shameful.
Think of this: Someone finds a way to make it wireless USB (using some batteries probably) and puting it inside a guitar. The guitar will have some kind of bronze or metal plates/buttons that will be connected to the Playtronica. The 6 strings could be used also I suppose. On the one side of the guitar, there will be a connetor for the ground. After touching both ground and the "buttons", the sounds will be produced. Here you are! a cheap HYDRA! (By the way, check this Guitar by Steve Vai)
Meh really, I was waiting to see a bit more creativity applied on the artifact instead of a dull review with zero interesting ideas sorry to say 🤷♂. It's actually the first video review I see on this but I think there's a lot of potential in this device, but you gotta give it LIFE, GROOVE, FLAVOR come on 😁
If your harp strings are metal, you could hook 16 of them to the board and tuck a ground wire in your sock so you can trigger midi notes (or any MIDI controller effect) when you touch the wired strings. (Hook the clip at the very bottom of each string so it doesn't dampen the natural vibration of the string).
This is pretty funny but your overthinking this. Take one lead from the board and plug it into your turnip. Take another lead from your turnip and ground it to the leg of your desk. If you need a longer run, clip two alligator cables together end to end. Take your barefoot and lean it against your grounded desk leg. Boom, now you can play your strawberries two handed.
HAHAH well if the very talented artist Eggplant™️ doesn't already have a DistroKid account he can create one for 10 bucks if I send him a collab invite 😂❤️
Ehhh...it can do more as a midi controller than a busted guitar in the middle of a monsoon...it has multiple inputs ; human interfaces...one can conceive that said "interfaces" could indeed be used to control more than just notes on a scale alone...it deserves slightly more credit I should fathom =^^= 🙃
You should revisit this... ...now, work with me here. Ground it to yourself somewhere, necklace, nose ring, clip it onto your ear, whatever, just permanently ground it to yourself. Okay, ground problem solved--now hook up the notes to key strings on the harp(maybe use the tuning pegs), and set it with a long attack, full release and a long decay with a medium sustain. Now, as you play the harp, certain strings will swell up additional notes. Use it like a pad and have fun with it, or maybe use it as a percussion instrument placed on key strings(do you drone a harp?) and ignore all that ADSR stuff I said. You're thinking way too straightforward about this whole thing. I mean, it's visually cool to play a bowl of fruit, but from a purely utilitarian viewpoint this could be a very useful tool for layering sounds in a live production.
Farmer's markets. You're the next blockbuster act for the Greater Lakes Turnip Festival. I'm tired of Ole' Digger McKillian and his rubber duckies always winning.
as a person who likes cat boys (as well as cat girls), russ's shirt OFFENDS me. it's the absolute WORST shirt i've ever seen in my life. i do not like russ. russ bad.
so i guess its safe to say this was the last playtron demo. bet they were super-pumped for this little review. lol its obvious youre honest. why not try holding the eggplant between your knees-....hear me out... and the use both hands to play. plus anything organic should work. meaning yo could take it to a park and play anything around you almost, as long as it had some conductivity to it. and you shouldnt need to specifically use alligator clips. just some long wires or a typical guitar cable or whatever and then clip to the ends. theres just so much that doesnt seem apparent at first. i might check one out myself after this video. awesome video though. love that you two are honest. makes the videos and your opinions both more trustworthy as someone who plays music and likes crazy sounds
So no to Playtron love your channel Destrokid you got this girl but why put fruit I thank you for your input also as a musician it helps me not to get these pedals I was a Boston guitar fan he was electrical engineer it’s weird it’s like fruit as a keyboard I am astonished and astonished
Can you put steel strings on your Harp? You could plug the alligators on 16 low steel strings, put the ground on your foot and use the Playtron to double your Harp bass with a MIDI sound. I'm not sure how much the plugs would screw the vibration of the strings tho
This may have come up already, but have you listened to Myco lyco's work? I'll attach a link in a reply to this comment. A wristband ground could be set up to free up your hand.
Brussels Sprouts! But you didn't use them :( So you're at a wedding gig and some Later Boomer / Gen Xer wants to punk it up. Clip the ground to a piece of your jewellery, grab some hors d'oeuvres, hook 'em up and run the whole thing through a bunch of pedals (Go Goth, Go Nepenthes). Et Voila Punk Performance Art! Or a Children's party - Brussels sprouts, cabbage, beans etc, and Fart pedal. The kids will be rolling on the floor. Ok a bit more serious, get a bunch of square dancers, hook half of them up to ground and the other half up to the notes, out put through a fiddle simulator and let them dance to their own music. Other genres and instruments as applicable too.
¨Somebody probably suggested this but Line up 17 kids attach a klamp to each of em and slap em for sounds that way they both learn a lesson and you play something cooler than fruits and plants... or go full Goth (serial killer fangirl/boi/them) and attach the Playtron to dead animals/severed bodyparts .. infinite possibilities,.,.
Hey Emily Hopkins! I can't believe now you're Debbie Downer! You could play with two hands and the ground item touching your foot! If you played music and did yoga at the same time it would negate the need for a longer cord! Merry Xmas season to you! Ride ride ride!
Let me show you my vision with this: You have an elaborately abstract table. It has copper plates in the shape of deformed “piano keys” laid out on it. Underneath it, you have these nodes connected to each plate. Hidden away is the ground connecting to another plate to make the connection. Under the table, you can connect your array of pedals in a unique configuration and you play through them with this makeshift music machine. I can see someone like Marilyn Manson having some tim burton-styled display of madness with such a machine.
Perfect review! I don’t want to see someone, that has already “mastered” the product. You knew, right away, that you will never need this. Emily, you are awesome.
Will it allow you to "zero" moderate resistances? I think it would be fun to connect the leads to something like blades of grass in the wind, but the built in "common connection" of actual ground could render that into an over complicated drone patch.
A man walks into a fortune teller tent. She clips a wire to his thumb (to monitor the spirit frequencies lol). She says...when I rub your palm, if you hear music...Grandma is in the room. That'll be $50 thanks....
hahah it's META 😂❤️ seriously though, going into this, I really did think the Playtron would be cool -- I was excited about it in the beginning until I realized how inconvenient the "ground" aspect was 🥺 the makers of Playtron (Playtronica) didn't pay us or sponsor this video in any way; we used the money from this video's sponsor (DistroKid) to buy and experiment with what we thought would be a cool device to, at the minimum, create an interesting discussion about how everyone feels about this. honestly, Playtronica is probably gonna be pissed about this, because I haven't yet seen a single negative review of the Playtron... everything you see is just fake ads on Instagram where they don't show you how the "ground" is plugged in or where it's attached to!
WAIT IS THAT WHAT THE INSIDE OF AN EGGPLANT LOOKS LIKE? My whole world just got flipped upside down I hate Eggplants even more now (also Russ, you leave those catboys alone uwu)
Playtron - a comment with a witty retort. I got nothing. Almost speechless. But is fun to see Emily get semi pissed trying to figure out what’s the point of this.
I found this item interesting. I think kids would love it IF you could attach items they would enjoy more than the kid dreaded fruits/vegetables. Maybe Pokemon cards or some such thing? Take care.
Definitely an interesting gimmick, with a limited application, but fun nevertheless. I think my introduction to it was on Andrew Huangs' channel, where he played PUSA's "Peaches" on, well, peaches.
